The Hindu Business Line : Changing their lives forever

Meet some of the tech-savvy women of Gujarat, for whom the world now lies in a mobile pouch. They have realised that information technology can link them to a world of enterprise and profits.

The launch of the Thaili (pouch) Phone Programme by the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) is a boon for its members — vegetable vendors, tobacco workers, gum collectors and village artisans. For, they will now keep their mobile phones in the beautifully handcrafted cloth pouches hanging from the wrist or tucked into their sari-clad waist.

To mark the occasion, a woman vegetable vendor used a mobile phone and called President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on his mobile. The President was only a few feet away from her and the phone she used was borrowed. Just a few days earlier, SEWA — a Gujarat-based organisation of five lakh urban and rural poor women — had taught her to use a mobile phone. She now plans to buy her own mobile. "I will use it to get the latest rate of vegetables in the market. I can earn more by being connected with the market," she declares.

At SEWA's headquarters in Ahmedabad, the President also inaugurated the Computer Learning Centre called Vignan SEWA (school for science and technology). The programme aims to train over 12,000 women in the next three years in ICT (information and communication technology). Several slum and village women in Gujarat are also learning to communicate through satellite conferences and video filming.

Computers, mobile phones, and teleconferences via satellite stations? Do women who barely manage to get two square meals need information technology? Can illiterate women even use technology? "In the last two years, women have come a long way — from considering PCs to be machines that give electric shocks or as fancy toys meant for the privileged," says Manisha Patel from SEWA's ICT team. "They have a vision. They understand that all these tools, in some way or the other, link them to the big multi-layered world of enterprise and profits."

Jebunissa, a Muslim farmer in Gujarat's Rawanpura village, sells her exquisitely embroidered pieces through SEWA. "Two years ago I realised how you could make designs and save them on the computer, and send them for approval on e-mail. The computer is like a window to the world. I told my husband I would learn how to use a computer," she says.

Rawanpura has been suffering from drought for the last three years. Her family's future hangs on her embroidery threads. For a higher income, she has to increase her productivity, be faster and better.

Jebunissa doesn't know English and until two years ago hadn't stepped out of her home. But after a week's training, she now makes her own designs on the computer and works on an Excel sheet. "I feel less helpless today. I feel I am part of the new world," she says.

A better life

For several women like Jebunissa, the ICT offers a route to a better life. The invisible and unorganised labour sector, which contributes to 92 per cent of the Indian economy, has a majority of women — mostly agricultural workers, artisans, loaders, vegetable sellers, sand pickers, gum collectors, rice mill workers and tailors.

Through the years, women have been kept out of the long chain of global markets. The Indian embroidered dress that will eventually sell for $100 at a New York store would have only fetched Rs 10 to the woman artisan who did the embroidery. Globalisation has only increased women workers' vulnerabilities in an already exploitative market.

But can ICTs change things for them? "Globalisation cannot be reversed. But women can be empowered to voice their demands and desires," says Reema Nanavaty, director of Rural Development in SEWA. "If multinationals can use ICT to increase profits and expand markets, poor women can use the same tools to upgrade their skills and organise themselves to be part of the global market."

It was after the 2001 earthquake in Kutch that women realised the advantages of dish antennae and telecentres. SEWA's teleconferences, relayed to 11 districts of Gujarat, brought Kutchi women face-to-face with government officials. The women demanded why relief had not reached their villages, or why water supply had not been restored or how many rehabilitation schemes were available.

Reema describes how a telephone can change a village woman's mindset. "One day I got a call on my mobile phone from a woman in a village. She announced that she and three other women had pooled in to buy a (landline) phone. They could now call the bus terminus to check departure timings instead of waiting on the highway for hours," she says. "They could also confirm appointments. One call costs them Rs 2. But a useless trip costs them a day's wages (Rs 20)."

Zeal to learn new things

Many women want to learn English — even before learning to read or write Gujarati — as they feel this would help them read the information displayed on several day-to-day things they use, like medicines. Leela Dantani used to sell vegetables. She now heads SEWA's video section. However, initially she couldn't read the symbols or instructions on the camera or follow them on the editing table. Slowly, she found a way. "I memorised the symbols and colours on each camera set or recording system. But soonrealised that with each model, the symbols changed. I could only operate the SEWA audio system. So I learnt the English alphabet too. Now I travel across the country to teach other village women."

Her films capture the problems women workers face; some have also been used in courtroom battles as proof.

Pushpa Parmar, a weaver from Rawanpura village, imparts computer training to rural women. Illiteracy has never been a barrier, she says. She has created a Gujarati-English computer manual for women: "I thought of words and symbols that women would understand and remember easily. They are so eager to learn that I don't have to repeat my lessons."

However, the most crucial change in women's lives — potentially — is political in nature. Waliben from Garuda village says she would like to use the knowledge on local governance — gained from teleconferences — to contest the sarpanch (village council head) elections. "That's when the situation of the entire village will change." She sees politics not just as an election process, but as one that makes governance accountable.

Women's Feature Service

Picture by Kamal Narang

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